UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI _____________ , 20 _____ I,______________________________________________, hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of: ________________________________________________ in: ________________________________________________ It is entitled: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Approved by: ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ PUCCINI’S USE OF JAPANESE MELODIES IN MADAMA BUTTERFLY A thesis submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music 2003 by Kunio Hara B.M., University of Cincinnati, 2000 Committee Chair: Dr. Hilary Poriss ABSTRACT One of the more striking aspects of exoticism in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is the extent to which the composer incorporated Japanese musical material in his score. From the earliest discussion of the work, musicologists have identified many Japanese melodies and musical characteristics that Puccini used in this work. Some have argued that this approach indicates Puccini’s preoccupation with creating an authentic Japanese setting within his opera; others have maintained that Puccini wanted to produce an exotic atmosphere rather than an accurate musical portrayal of Japan; still others have regarded Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies as a manifestation of musical orientalism, a Western, privileged depiction of musically and culturally foreign and inferior Others. Although these studies represent important contributions to Puccini scholarship, many of them fail to acknowledge the exceptional conditions of music production in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The goal of this study is to rectify this situation by providing a reassessment, both cultural and analytic, of Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies that takes into account the specific historic and cultural contexts in which these melodies emerged and traveled to the composer’s hands. First, I will survey the existing research in order to outline the current comprehension and evaluation of Puccini’s adoption of Japanese music. Second, I will provide my own analyses of Puccini’s score in relation to contemporaneous musical activities in Japan in an attempt to situate the work within a larger cultural and historical phenomenon of the musical exchange between Japan and the West. My analyses consist of three chapters, each concerning Puccini’s use of a particular song or a collection of pieces in Madama Butterfly. They are “Miyasan,” a popular Japanese military song from the early Meiji Era, “Kimigayo,” the Japanese national anthem, and Nippon Gakufu, two volumes of piano arrangements of Japanese melodies by Rudolf Dittrich. Through this reassessment, I intend to direct critical attention to the intricate web of cultural connections that link Puccini’s opera to music of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. BUTTERFLY’S SONGS 2 2. “MIYASAN” 23 3. “KIMIGAYO” 39 4. DITTRICH’S NIPPON GAKUFU 56 5. CONCLUSION 75 BIBLIOGRAPHY 83 APPENDIX 1. A SAMPLE OF NOTES FROM DITTRICH’S NIPPON GAKUFU 89 2. MUSICAL EXAMPLES 90 1 CHAPTER 1 BUTTERFLY’S SONGS Despite its catastrophic opening night at La Scala in 1904, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has continued to fascinate audiences and critics alike with its exotic musical appeal. Relying on conventional musical devices that signified the Orient, Puccini assembled and studied collections and recordings of Japanese music and consulted specialists, incorporating a significant number of authentic Japanese melodies within the opera. Since he did not reveal much information about his borrowings, musicologists such as Mosco Carner, Kimiyo Powils-Okano, Arthur Groos, and others have identified Japanese melodies, attempting to reconstruct his compositional process and to interpret his use of these tunes.1 Some have argued that Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies indicates his preoccupation with creating an authentic Japanese setting within his opera; others have stressed the strong correlation between the symbolic meaning of the Japanese songs and narrative of the opera; still others have regarded Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies as 1 Alfred Baresel, Giacomo Puccini: Leben und Werke (Hamburg: Hans Sikorski, 1954), 58–61, 70–2; Julian Budden, Puccini: His Life and Works, The Master Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 223–73; Georg Capellen, “Madame Butterfly und die Exotik,” Neue Musik-Zeitung 30 (1908–9): 465–8; Mosco Carner, “The Exotic Element in Puccini,” The Musical Quarterly 22 (1936): 45–67; idem, Puccini: A Critical Biography, 3d ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1992), 409–52; Karl Gustav Fellerer, Giacomo Puccini (Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1937), 67–71; Michele Girardi, Puccini: His International Art, trans. Laura Basini (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 195– 258; Arthur Groos, “Cio-Cio-San and Sadayakko: Japanese Music-Theater in Madama Butterfly,” Monumenta Nipponica 54 (1999): 41–73; Mary Renner Heath, “Exoticism in Puccini: The Japanese Melodies in Madama Butterfly,” The Opera Journal 21 (1980): 21–8; Duiti Miyasawa, “Madama Butterfly’s Original Melodies,” Opera News 16, no. 13 (1952): 7–9; and Kimiyo Powils-Okano, Puccinis “Madama Butterfly,” Orpheus-Schriftenreihe zu Grundfragen der Musik, no. 44 (Bonn: Verlag für systematische Musikwissenschaft, 1986), 9–10, 44–62. 2 a manifestation of musical orientalism, a Western, privileged depiction of musically and culturally foreign and inferior Others. Although these studies represent important contributions to Puccini scholarship, many of them fail to acknowledge the exceptional conditions of music production in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collapse of the feudal government, the Tokugawa shogunate, in 1867 and the dissolution of its rigidly regulated social structure caused ground- breaking shifts in traditional music of Japan, including the reintroduction of women on performing stages, the resurgence of court music (gagaku), and the decline of official patronage for nō theater. The new Meiji government’s ambitious program of modernization and Westernization introduced Western art music, military band music, and music education into the fabric of Japanese society, causing fundamental changes in the musical landscape of Japan.2 Although some scholars tend to emphasize the authenticity of the melodies Puccini employed, the supposed Japanese music that he encountered in the early twentieth century was already a product of a complex cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Without considering these cultural and historic conditions of the music that Puccini adopted in his opera, our understanding of Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies and its musical and cultural implications, I believe, remains incomplete. The goal of my thesis is to rectify this situation by providing a reassessment, both cultural and analytic, of Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies that takes into account the specific historic 2 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s. v. “Japan, § VI ‘Theatre Music,’ 1 ‘Nō’” by David Waterhouse,” and s. v. “Japan, § V ‘Court Music,’” by Allan Marett; and Satomi Oshio, “Gender Roles in the Performing Arts in Japan,” in East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea, vol. 7 of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, ed. Robert C. Provine, Yoshiko Tokumaru, and J. Lawrence Witzleben (New York: Routledge, 2002), 763–6. 3 and cultural contexts in which these melodies emerged and traveled to the composer’s hands. Through this reassessment, I intend to direct critical attention to the intricate web of cultural connections that link Puccini’s opera to music of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. In the remainder of this chapter, I will survey the existing research in order to outline the current comprehension and evaluation of Puccini’s adoption of Japanese music. I will then provide my own analyses of Puccini’s score in relation to contemporaneous musical activities in Japan in an attempt to situate the work within a larger cultural and historical phenomenon of the musical exchange between Japan and the West. My analyses will consist of three chapters, each dealing with Puccini’s use of a particular song or a collection of pieces in Madama Butterfly. With this study, I hope to demonstrate a culturally informed understanding of Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies as well as its complex musical and cultural implications. 1 The discussion of the significance of Puccini’s use of Japanese music in Madama Butterfly began immediately following its premiere in 1904. Contemporary critics of the opera understood Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies as a response to audiences’ expectations of an appropriate depiction of local color and, to a lesser extent, of identifiable Japanese themes. A review of the opera’s opening-night performance informs us of the ways in which contemporary Italian audiences and critics interpreted Puccini’s use of Japanese melodies: The conflict between the American character and the Japanese one is provided by paraphrases of the American and Japanese national anthems…. The local